Write Off: James Comey’s firing

James Comey needed to go. Both Republicans and Democrats had reason to hate Comey within the past year. Democrats hated it when he reopened the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation during the election and Republicans hate him since he was “looking into Russia.” Let’s be honest, Democrats, you wanted him gone ever since he opened his mouth about Clinton’s emails, and on the flip side, he was very annoying bringing up Russia every weekend. But Comey was a terrible director before he even said anything about Clinton’s servers.

Let me make myself clear, he was a terrible FBI director near the end of his tenure. Directors before Comey stayed out of politics. The FBI only cared about politics when it started to concern the American public, not during a heated presidential campaign. That Comey suddenly started investigating the Clinton emails during the campaign and Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia before he was fired is highly unorthodox.

Trump firing Comey is not an act of foul play. Comey was fired because he wasn’t like any FBI director before him. FBI directors were like ghosts — they didn’t shine in the public light and only worked at conference tables surrounded by advisors and heads of the department. James Comey wasn’t just an anomaly in the lineage of FBI directors, he brought the reputation of the FBI down by getting into partisan politics.

The FBI failed to find any evidence against Clinton. Becoming involved in politics (especially in this last election) was probably the worst thing Comey could have done. Perhaps he saw another Watergate in the works and wanted to prevent it, but choosing to act as he did has ultimately put this country on course for exactly that.

In 2013, Comey presided over the biggest blunder in the history of the FBI. Their famous hair comparison evidence was ineffective and found to be tampered with. It was false and the FBI knew it. People who were raided by the FBI were convicted of a crime that we now know they were probably innocent of. Isn’t that horrible? Shouldn’t the director of the FBI resign after realizing that they’ve been using a technique that is faulty? That apparently didn’t occur to Comey.

Isn’t it odd that Clinton wasn’t even prosecuted for her e-mails in front of a jury of her fellow citizens and had the evidence of her follies displayed in open court? Why did Comey only say, “There’s not enough evidence” without showing us the evidence? There’s nothing Comey could do, or his successor would want to do, about Clinton. You can have it out for Clinton or not, but no American is above the law or suspicion and a public trial should have been conducted regardless of the FBI’s findings, due to the reasonable suspicion behind her private email server.

So let’s be honest, Comey should have gone long ago, and not for any partisan reasons. We need a younger gun at the helm of the FBI, someone who respects the tradition of the FBI director and stays out of politics to do their job — arresting criminals with reasonable and legal methods, regardless of their political leanings.

As was reported, Donald Trump fired Comey because he believed the former director “spoke out of turn,” first when he recommended no charges be brought against Hillary Clinton in July of 2016, and second, when he revealed that more emails involved in the case had been discovered days before the election. The Trump administration, on full spin-mode, would make it seem that this was about, of all things, defending Clinton. But that’s not the case. This is about Russia.

Three points confirm this. First, a memo written by Comey following a meeting with the president confirms that Trump asked Comey to drop the investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Second, Comey’s termination was recommended by Attorney General Jeff Sessions even after he agreed to recuse himself from the investigation. And the third and most glaring point, in the actual letter sent to Comey, Trump directly refers to the ongoing Russia-Trump investigation. Dear Mr. President, if this has nothing to do with the investigation into you, why even bring it up?

It is blatantly obvious that Trump decided to fire Comey in an attempt to disrupt the FBI investigation. But it won’t work. No one is buying that Trump fired Comey in defense of his archnemesis and in the spirit of “restoring public confidence in the FBI.” Not only does this decision reinforce the belief that Trump’s administration is totally incompetent, it has initiated a cascade of consequences that very well may spell disaster for the Tweeter-in-Chief.

The bewildering part is that Trump incriminated himself.

No one was asking about secret tapes before Trump’s thinly veiled threat to former director Comey. No one even suspected secret tapes existed. Now, the House Oversight Committee has announced it is ready to subpoena all communications between Comey and Trump, the Justice Department has appointed a special counsel to take over the Russia probe, and Comey has agreed to testify in a public senate hearing at the end of the month.

History may not repeat itself, but it definitely rhymes. 40 years ago, Nixon also fired the lead investigator into the Watergate probe. When it was revealed that Nixon recorded all his communications in the Oval Office, it was these tapes that ultimately led to his resignation.

But Trump and his band of merry fascists don’t have half the self-awareness that Nixon did. We can assume Trump won’t go gently into that good night, even with subpoenas and a special prosecutor. Removing him from office will require a full impeachment. We mustn’t forget that Democrats controlled Congress in 1974. Looking at the lack of political will exercised by our current Congress, it is clear that that a movement toward impeachment probably won’t come until, at the earliest, 2018, and only ifAmerica can flip the Senate back to the Democrats.

But if and when it is proven that Trump colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election, the smoking gun won’t be leaked by someone on the inside — it will be written in under 140 characters.

Newsroom 5-24-2017: This past week saw a group of male demonstrators (or, "trolls") take the Bell Tower to condemn Muslims, yoga pants, homosexuality and more as sin. The men held signs reading "You're Going to Hell!" and students around campus were openly disturbance toward their presence.30:48

Newsroom 5-9-2017: We talk about the announcement of ASUCR elections results, developments on the UCOP's $175 million reserve and more discussions over UC Berkeley conservative speakers.31:15

Newsroom 4-26-2017: We talk about UCOP Audit and New York's new Exceli sor scholarship31:39

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